The Sims
First published 9/7/2000

Okay, look: I won't lie to you. This week's column could be better. It's just that I'm totally addicted to this stupid video game.

It's called The Sims, and if you haven't heard of it I'll try to explain it. (Although it probably won't translate very well into print. Steve Martin said talking about painting is like dancing about architecture, and if that's true then writing about video games must be like knitting about golf.)

The game involves creating a little virtual person. You build him a little virtual house and fill it with virtual stuff like virtual couches and ghetto blasters and toaster ovens. He has to pay for all this stuff by earning virtual money at a virtual job.

But that's not all. You have to make sure the little virtual person looks after all his virtual responsibilities: going to virtual work, maintaining virtual personal relationships, attending to virtual hygiene. In other words, it's more or less the same as your normal life -- if you still had a life, which you don't because now you're hooked on this stupid game.

I mean, my guy's little kitchen is spotless. Mine is off the dirty kitchen Richter scale. My guy gets lots of exercise. I never leave the computer. My guy spends quality time with his wife. I've barely spoken to mine for three days -- which is okay with her, because she's spent the whole time sitting at her computer playing the same dumb game.

Sometimes we call out to each other across the hallway. "Hey, my little guy just got a promotion!" "That's great! Want a beer?" "Sure!" Half an hour later: "I was going to get a beer, wasn't I?" That's how you know you're hooked on something; when it makes you forget to drink beer.

The Sims presents kind of an ontological dilemma. I mean, you're playing at being yourself. It's very M.C. Escher: you look into a little window and control a little guy who's just like you. It's like an artifact from some kind of Bizarro planet where space pilots come home from fighting aliens all day and play at being suburbanites.

There are also theological issues. Wouldn't the world be a nicer place if God was as hooked on the earth as I am on The Sims? He seems to have taken a more active role in biblical times. Maybe He had to answer the phone or go to the bathroom or something.

Anyway, there's no point in this kind of deep pondering. It takes away precious mental energy I could spend playing The Game. What I should probably do is create a little virtual house identical to mine, and put a little virtual me in there. Then maybe he could write you a funnier column.

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